Toronto Fashion Week Organizer Apologetic After Drunken Speech

By Erin Letson Posted October 23, 2008, 12:48 PM EDT

TORONTO
The woman behind L'Oréal Fashion Week has apologized after a drunken speech preceding Monday night's Mango show, according to a report in today's Toronto Star. Robin Kay, president of the Fashion Design Council of Canada, delivered a rambling speech welcoming guests to the tents in Nathan Phillips Square Monday and was escorted off the runway by Luc Laroche, an executive from Mango Canada, before she had finished her remarks.

The speech reportedly bristled sponsor Holt Renfrew's vice president of fashion direction, Barbara Atkin. “This kind of bad behaviour is the equivalent of wearing a bad accessory. The problem is no matter how beautiful your outfit is, everyone is looking at the bad accessory,” Atkin told TheStar's David Graham, who reported that no other sponsors would comment publicly. (Atkin also spoke of Kay's dedication to Fashion Week.)

TheStar noted that Kay's speech—broadcast on the Fashion Television channel, which is running daily live-to-tape wrap-ups during Fashion Week—has “been ridiculed on an entertainment television show and mocked on Facebook pages.” National Post society columnist Shinan Govani wrote about the incident in his Wednesday column. Kay offered us more lucid remarks in this pre-Fashion Week interview.